Humble Bundle ethics/etiquette

[Something Amyss]

You can split your payment in any matter you see fit. (Well, you can't split the dev portion between the different devs, but still.)

Dropdown arrow on the left side of the "developers" portion. There's also one for charities. Really want to support EFF? Go for it.

When I first clicked on the page, that arrow was missing, but it's a normal part of the HB.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Always $15 for me, but I can afford to do so and I give $10 of that to the charity.

The other $5 I split between the bundle guys and the devs. Do what you can afford, what you think feels right.

 

[Risingblade]

I round the average up to the nearest dollar.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Now, if the money was going DIRECTLY to a dev I really want to support, I would pay much, much more.

Hmm...If only there was a "none to Phil fish" option on the slider. My problem is I don't hate him enough to snub the other developers who aren't crap.

This is exactly what you can do if you go to the page right now and click the drop-downs when splitting your money. You decide who gets it entirely aside from the paypal processing fee.

If I wanted to give all $5 to FTL I could do exactly that.

 

[Doom972]

They say it, but I don't see how it is their business what one does with his Steam key.

So you're advocating they violate the terms of the Bundle simply because you don't think it's any of their business? That seems to violate the spirit and letter of the Bundle here and strikes me as though it has the future potential to ruin it for everyone should enough people get caught doing it.

Probably not the best advice to give to someone who's considering the ethics of the Bundle.

Not simply because it's none of their business, but because otherwise the key goes unused. Whats the point of buying something and not have a use for it? I also don't like it when people sell something and then tell you what you can and can't do with it.

 

[Something Amyss]

This is exactly what you can do if you go to the page right now and click the drop-downs when splitting your money. You decide who gets it entirely aside from the paypal processing fee.

Hmmm...Seems I already covered that.

Not simply because it's none of their business, but because otherwise the key goes unused. Whats the point of buying something and not have a use for it? I also don't like it when people sell something and then tell you what you can and can't do with it.

You're already told you don't get bonus/replacement keys for games you already own. You should already be aware of this and be okay with it if you're buying into it. It's absurd to then turn around and say "I don't like this arrangement, I've giving away these keys because I can!"

also, I like the notion that you don't want to pay to be told what to do...With STEAM keys....

Yeah, seriously.

 

[lacktheknack]

I pay double digits, every time.

You say you'll pay more next week if you can, right? Why not buy it for whatever you want right now, and then increase your donation next week if you can? I think that's an option.

 

[BartyMae]

I never buy Hundle Bundles because there's usually only like one game I'm interested in, (for example, for this week's "Weekly Bundle", it'd be System Shock 2), and I don't feel comfortable paying under the average for all those games, (even if I don't want most of them), but nor do I want to pay over the average, (because I don't feel like it's money well spent)...so I don't.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I have a weird formula for the Humble Bundles. It goes something like this.

Average donation price, divided by the number of games in the bundle = price per game.
Personal donation price = price per game that I'm actually interested in playing.

So if the bundle is 4 games, average donation price is $8.00 and I'm only interested in playing two of the games I'll donate $4.00.

It's not a perfect system since I have retroactively found myself playing and enjoying the games I hadn't expected to, but in those cases I think it usually evens out as I end up supporting that developer through additional game or merch sales.

 

[EyeReaper]

I take whatever the average price is, then slap five extra bucks on it. dunno why, just do

 

[VonKlaw]

If the games that are above average are ones I don't want/care about, then I'll usually pay about $2 for them.
If the games that are above average are ones I want, I'll usually pay a couple of dollars above the average.
If I really enjoy a game (I'm loving A Valley Without Wind atm) then I'll usually go back and up my donation later.

I consider this system reasonably fair, since I'd love to pay more but my finances atm don't really leave much room, and (like some people have already said) the developers are aware that most people aren't going to pay anywhere near RRP for the bundle.

And while its against the TOS to give away extra keys, they don't enforce it - a lot of people do since giving it away is better than it going to waste (I already had FTL from this bundle, so that got given away).

 

[Total LOLige]

I pay the average plus one or two dollars pretty much every time, except recently I paid $3 for the Comedy bundle(I've only listened to Hannibal and watched the Jim Norton thing though). I'd pay more but my bank charges me an extra £1 for transactions in dollars, that's an extra $1.60 that could have gone to charity.

I've barely played any of the games gotten from Humble Bundles.

 

[Doom972]

Not simply because it's none of their business, but because otherwise the key goes unused. Whats the point of buying something and not have a use for it? I also don't like it when people sell something and then tell you what you can and can't do with it.

You're already told you don't get bonus/replacement keys for games you already own. You should already be aware of this and be okay with it if you're buying into it. It's absurd to then turn around and say "I don't like this arrangement, I've giving away these keys because I can!"

also, I like the notion that you don't want to pay to be told what to do...With STEAM keys....

Yeah, seriously.

Again, it's not "because I can" (implying spite), but because it would otherwise go unused.

 

[Idlemessiah]

I usually fork out $10; 5 for the devs and 5 for charity. If the average was ever actually more than $10 then sure I'd go higher.

 

[mattaui]

I always pay a little above average, with the exception of the Origin bundle, where I paid more. I leave the sliders where they start so it's divvied up by default.

 

[nuttshell]

It really comes down to your monetary situation at the moment. If you want those games and have the money, then why not give more? If you want those games and don't have the money then why not give less?

 

[Idlemessiah]

I usually donate $10 and it all goes to charity. Usually $10 for humble bundles is a pretty good price. If people are too cheap to only pay a dollar I think they might as well torrent it.

That comment is a little unfair I think. If you can't afford to be charitable but you want the goodies anyway then sure you COULD torrent it. But they're letting you have it for just the one dollar. I'm pretty sure even the poorest gamer can afford one dollar. And if 1000 people torrent it instead of throwing a buck in, then HB missing out on $1000. They then rely on people who can afford to be more charitable to make it up.

I don't judge anyone for how much they give to charity. It all adds up in the end and thats what counts.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I've never bought the Humble Indie Bundle. **shrug** I'm not that into Indie games.

However, I have done other "pay what you want" deals - mostly at DrivethruRPG.com for tabletop PDFs.

One time, I'd pledged to a Kickstarter and was going to get the PDF for free, but I had to wait six months for the rest of the Kickstarter stuff to be release. Rather than wait, when the PDF came up on a "pay what you want" sale, I paid a dollar. Thus I paid a dollar for something I was already getting free so that I could get it early.

Another time, I paid a dollar for a PDF there - but I'd never heard of the company or product before, so it was a sort of "let's see if this is good - if it is, I might buy their other products" sort of situation.

Of course, both of these deals were for a single pdf document rather than for a bundle of games. I've paid a dollar for a game before, but it was on sale for that much and not a pay-what-you-want situation.

... so yeah... this seemed more relevant when I started writing than it does now. **shrug**

 

[TehCookie]

I give how much I think the games deserve. Better games get more money, like $10. I only spent $1 on the Origin bundle. I'm cheap.